P5

Sci-fi corridor how to guide

1. Firstly, open your Maya 2016 software. The version has to be 2016 because of a plugin called 'Mental Ray' which I will get onto later.

2. Once Maya is open and ready, you now need to set a save location for your file. To do this go to File - Save Scene As - and find a location where you will save your corridor.

3. Now we can start modelling. Here are the important keyboard shortcuts to know before starting.

The keyboard shortcuts are:

Select tool 'Q'

Move tool 'W'

Rotate tool 'E'

Scale tool 'R'

To move around the scene:

Hold down 'ALT' on Windows or 'CMD' on Mac and hold down left click to rotate in your persp view.

Hold down 'ALT' on Windows or 'CMD' on Mac and hold down the middle mouse button to drag around your scene, you can move left and right, up and down, and side to side. 

Hold down 'ALT' on Windows or 'CMD' on Mac and hold down right click to zoom in and out of your scene, or just use the scroll wheel. 

Make sure you are on Modeling and Polygons before starting.

Click the cube in the polygon menu, this will create a cube in your scene.

4. Hold down right click and select 'Object Mode', then click on the cube. Press the 'R' key to use the scale tool, and drag the small cube in the centre outwards as shown below to enlarge the shape.



With the scale tool still selected, drag the small cube outwards to stretch the shape. Then press 'W' for the move tool and move the shape up slightly to make it easier to model.

Now we need to insert an 'Edge Loop'. This can be found in 'Mesh Tools' and 'Insert Edge Loop.



Click on the edge of the shape, not the face. This will create a line around the rectangle.



Repeat this here:



And here:



5. Now hit 'Q' on the keyboard, hold down right click, and select 'Face', and select these two faces by holding shift while clicking to select multiple.



Now press 'W', then go to 'Edit Mesh' and click 'Extrude'.

Press 'W' and pull the faces up like this:



Now go back to 'Mesh Tools' and click 'Insert Edge Loop'.



Click on the edge of the right pillar twice like so:

Hold right click and go to 'Face'. Now drag select these faces only.

Press 'W' and drag the pillar out like this:

6. Now move your camera to this view:

And add two edge loops here (Found in 'Mesh Tools'.)

Now press 'Q' and double click the inside face, to select all the faces around the model like this:

Go to 'Extrude' found in 'Edit Mesh' and press 'R' on the keyboard. Then scale up the faces, to give this result:

7. Now select just these three faces as shown below (Remember to hold right click and select face).

Edit Mesh - Extrude.

And extrude the faces out to here (Where the edge loop we created earlier is):

8. Now press the space bar which will bring you to this view.

Then put your mouse over the bottom left section (The front view) and press the space bar again.

This will bring you to the front view:

Now, hit 4 on your keyboard to view in 'Wireframe mode', and then, using the edge loop tool, insert one here:

And here:

9. Go back to your normal perspective view, and select these faces, and drag them out again, by using 'W'.

Now hold right click, go to edge, edit mesh - extrude.

Press 'W' and pull that over to the other side like so:

Now switch back to the front view (Remember to use the space bar, then bottom left section). Make sure you're in wireframe mode by pressing 4, you should be already. Then hold right click, and go to vertex. Then zoom in on this area (Top left).

Drag select this vertex and bring it up to the top like this:

10. Go back to your default view, and select all of the top faces.

Edit Mesh - Extrude - Press 'W'. Drag up like this:

11. Now hold down right click, select Object Mode, and select your model. Now hit 'CMD + D' on Mac to duplicate, or 'CTRL + D' on Windows. This will copy and paste your object. Now move that over to here by pressing 'W'.

Now press 'SHIFT + D' until there are five duplicates.

12. Now we will need to select the entire outer edge of the first section we made, for example:

Then go to Edit Mesh - Extrude. Then drag the edges out to the end like so:

13. Now we will create some light panels on the roof. For this we will need to switch to the top view and press 4 for wireframe mode.

Now zoom in to the top section here:

And, with the insert edge loop tool found in 'Mesh Tools'.

Add one here:

Now count ten squares down, and add another one.

Now count three squares down and place another one like so:

Count another ten down:

Then another three, and repeat this sequence until the end.

Once you have done that your model should look something similar to this:

10. Go back to your perspective view. Press 'Q' and hold down right click, then select Face. Select all of these faces:

Then go to Edit Mesh - Extrude and change the 'Offset' value in the pop up box to 1.0. It should look like this:

Now we're going to extrude these faces. With these faces still selected go to Edit Mesh - Extrude. Pull these down until they look like this:

Now what you need to do is delete these faces by simply hitting the delete key.

This will result in this:

11. Now we're going to create the floor. Firstly, in the polygons menu, click on the cylinder icon. This will put it in the scene.

Move your cylinder by using the move tools so that you can see it more clearly.

Now, with the cylinder selected, go to your Attribute Editor and change the tab from 'pCylinderShape' to 'polyCylinder'.

This will show you this tab:

Change 'Subdivisions Axis' from 20 to 40.

Then hold down right click, select Object Mode, and select the cylinder.

Now press 'E' to rotate. You will need this to be accurate, so on your Attribute Editor, change to the 'pCylinder' tab. Change 'Rotate' to 90 degrees and hit enter.

Now switch to your front view:

Press 'R' and scale the cylinder down, and press 'W' to move it to the lower left corner.

Now go back to your perspective view, and press 'R' with the object selected. Stretch the cylinder out until it fits perfectly down the corridor. For example:

With the object selected, press 'CMD + D' or 'CTRL + D' to duplicate. With the move tool, move the object to the right, just like this:

Now press 'SHIFT + D' to keep duplicating. Keep doing this until the floor is covered to the end.

12. For step 12, we're going to add some detail to our corridor. Firstly, create a cube, and go to 'polyCube'. Change the following:

Subdivisions Width: 6
Subdivisions Depth: 10

With the scale tool, make the object look like this:

Now make sure that the shape fits into the corridor by moving it over like so:

Now, move the shape into an area that is easy to edit, and select all of the top faces.

Now go to Edit Mesh - Poke Face.

Now hold down right click, and select 'Vertex'. Now we're going to select all of these vertices in the centre like so:

Now press 'W' and move the vertices down slightly. Then poke the faces again by going to Edit Mesh - Poke. It will look like this:

Select the object in object mode, press 'W', and move it back into the corridor. Place it here:

Now we're going to repeat the same process with the floor, by duplicating this object for each section of the corridor. Remember to duplicate the object, move it, then use 'SHIFT + D' to repeat that duplicate.

The end result will look like this:

13. Now we're going to add some more piping. To start, select one of the pipes on the floor. Now duplicate it, and scale it up slightly so that it's not the same size as the floor. Move the duplicate to here, and use the front view in wireframe mode to help:

It should look like this:

14. Finally, drag select all of your work done so far.

Go to Mesh - Combine:

How I changed the corridor

1. FLOOR 
As for the floor, this consisted of many different parts:

I will now go through the main parts of the floor. Firstly, I created a metal grate to run down the centre:

I made a second metal grate for more detail:

I made some floor panels, which has glass in the middle to see the piping underneath:

Finally I created a strip to run down on each side, which would become a black and yellow line:

I then put all of these objects together:

2. PIPING
I included more piping around the corridor, for example, I put some more on the left:

To do this, I duplicated the piping I already made on the right, and moved it over with 'W', and rotated it with 'E'.

I also moved the original flooring underneath the floor I made, by using the move tool:

3. GLASS (The glass is invisible when modelling in Maya)
I added in lots of glass around my corridor. For example, I added some on the side:

On the floor:

And inside the corridor:

To do this I selected an object:

I held down right click:

And selected 'mia_material_x'. I then went to presets - glass solid.

Three objects

1. Spaceship

Firstly I created a cube:

And then extruded out both faces:

Then I selected both edges and extruded inwards:

I extruded again, this time dragging two edges down like this:

With this face still selected, extrude again, and pull the wings out to here:

Now press 'W' and pull the wing back like this:

Now repeat this on the other side.

The model will look like this:

Now select the front face and extrude it out to here:

Now press 'R' and scale the front face down, press 'W' and pull it down like so:

Now select the front face on the left of the ship, and press extrude. Now hit 'R' and scale the edges towards the center like this:

Now extrude a second time, and with the move tool, pull the face inside like this:

Now repeat this on the other side.

Having done this, we now need to repeat this exact same process on the opposite side, so the rear of the ship. Make sure that you extrude further inwards this time as these are the thrusters:

As for the main thruster, select the center of the ship at the back, and repeat the same process, but extrude the face further than the two side thrusters like so:

Now select the top face, and extude the side faces inwards.

Extrude the face up like so, and then select the top face. Now with the move tool, pull it back slightly until it is at an angle like a wing:

Now select the whole ship, and go to Mesh - Smooth:

The ship is done.

2. Crate

Firstly, I created a cube, and changed its shape to a cuboid:

I then inserted more edges using the edge loop tool, splitting the cuboid into lots of sections:

I then selected these two faces:

And with the extrude tool, I pushed the faces in:

I then repeated this here:

Here:

Here:

And here:

3. Barrel

Firstly, I created a cylinder:

I then changed polyCylinder1 to these settings:

And then, in front view, which you can get to by pressing space, I held down right click - vertex - and shift selected these:

I then pressed 'R'and pulled the sides in to here:

And I went back into perspective view, and selected all these edges:

I then held right click - bevel edge:

I then changed the fraction (in the pop up box) to 0.1:

Then, back in the front view, I drag selected all these faces in the center:

Then (Back in perspective view) I clicked extrude. I then changed the following options in the pop up menu:

Which gave this result:

I then selected the top and bottom faces, and clicked extrude:

I changed the following settings:

I then clicked extrude again and changed to these settings:

I then selected these faces top and bottom all the way round with two spaces in-between:

Now press extrude, and change the thickness in the pop up box to 0.1:

Now select these edges in the middle:

And go to mesh - bevel:

Now select all of these faces all around the object with a pattern of four and two in-between:

Now go to extrude, and change these settings in the pop up box:

Now select the both the top and bottom faces, press extrude, and change the offset to 0.1:

And extrude again, dragging both faces inwards like so:

The barrel is done:

Issues and how I resolved them

I had an issue with the lighting when following a tutorial to make a corridor. In the first screenshot, the faces were black after reversing the normals. 

Then I found a forum which directed me to go to the lighting tab and turn on two sided lighting. That fixed the problem. The second screenshot shows where the lighting tab is located, along with the two sided lighting option.

Before:

After:

While modelling I couldn't find the 'Attribute Editor'.

To resolve this, there is an option to show the 'Attribute Editor' top right of the window.

I hovered over it and it showed this:

I selected it, and the 'Attribute Editor' showed up on the right of the window.

When trying to add subdivisions to an object, it deformed the object, making it unusable.

In this screenshot I've added 'Subdivisions Width: 6'.

To resolve this, I learnt that if you try to add a subdivision to a modified shape, then the above error will happen. For example, if I create a cube and then I select a face, then drag it out, it won't be the original shape, which causes the above example. However, using 'Object mode' is fine, meaning I can move the shape around before adding subdivisions.

Screenshot of me adding subdivisions BEFORE modifying the shape: